Newsletter Archive

Microworks eNews - April 2014

Welcome Back!

It’s been a long winter but spring has finally arrived. Hopefully you had a chance to get out to the Las Vegas Pizza Expo and stop by our booth and say hello. If not, here’s a summary of some of the things we’ve been working on and some issues you need to keep on your radar.

Microsoft has announced the end of life for Windows XP. This will begin by freezing changes to the operating system itself and in 2015 ending updates to Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE). Microsoft states: “After 12 years, support for Windows XP will end on April 8, 2014. There will be no more security updates or technical support for the Windows XP operating system.” However if you have “Microsoft Security Essentials installed, you will continue to receive anti-malware signature updates through July 14, 2015”. If your POS stations or servers are still running Windows XP this does not mean that they will suddenly stop running but it does mean it’s time to start thinking about the upgrade process. Even though your POS stations or servers will continue running after Microsoft stops supporting Windows XP there are a few major reasons why it’s time to make the switch.

PCI-DSS

If you are required by your credit card Merchant agreement to keep your POS system in compliance with PCI-DSS standards Windows XP will no longer meet those requirements. Microworks now recommends that you upgrade your computers to Windows 7 and can walk you through that process. In most cases this is just a matter of swapping out the hard disk drives on your server and POS stations with a “drive swap” that we provide you. This is a fairly simple process and something that you can do yourself with a little telephone support. Since the units will need to be opened up to swap the drives it’s a good time to do a little basic maintenance by brushing out any dust or flour that has accumulated in the unit and checking that all of the fans are in good working order.

Hot Fixes and Service Packs

The End of Live deadline for Windows XP will trigger the end of Security Updates for the Windows XP core operating system. Security Updates are the changes to the operating system itself not applications like PrISM POS, updates to PrISM POS will continue as always and will be distributed by the same methods. The primary issue is that if vulnerability is discovered in the core operating system Microsoft will no longer supply a Hot Fix or a Service pack to patch that issue. This will leave your server and POS stations vulnerable and “potentially unprotected” to known malicious applications or intent.

Another Consideration

If you’re concerned about PCI-DSS another major consideration is switching over to a credit card gateway and not saving credit card data on premises. If your stores are not currently running credit card transactions through our gateway module chances are you’re not PCI-DSS compliant. Please contact us at (800) 787-2068 for more information on how we can get your stores compliant and on a secure platform. We are committed to providing a solution that will future-proof all of your card processing requirements and the Microworks / Verifone payment gateway is the best option we have found for our customers.

SecureWeb Transactions

Web-Orders have become an integral part of the take-out and delivery landscape, both Mobile and desktop format web ordering. Securely processing web-orders has been a primary objective of our development team this year and our latest release of weborder (v4) now supports state-of-the-art secure transaction processing. An equally important objective of our development team was to design a secure WebOrder solution that could be seamlessly integrated with the store-side POS and share a common batch, WebOrder v4 now fully supports both.

With SecureWeb your customers can now seamlessly, optionally and securely save their credit cards onto a Verifone hosted PCI-DSS compliant server. WebOrder accepts a “Token” to use a card in the future, which allows for saved cards without the risks associated with storing cardholder data.

The common foundation for both secure store-side and SecureWeb transactions is the Verifone Payware Connect payment gateway. Please contact us so that we can put you on a path to get your locations converted over to the payment gateway and securely processing all of your credit card transactions.

The Secret Sauce

Email Marketing / Web Design

If your location accepts web-orders and you’re not marketing directly to your end-users you’re missing out on one of the most cost effective ways to grow your business. Microworks is now offering web design and email marketing services for our WebOrder customers. Let us show you how effective an email marketing campaign can be for your organization. Let us tie your primary website deign, email marketing and WebOrder together to present one consistent brand image to your customers.